10 New Comics for Your Post-Comic-Con Consideration

Even in a year like this one, when comics' most storied minds like Alan Moore, Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis are too busy or disenchanted to show up, cool new books are in the works.

We've rounded up some of the more intriguing comics announced or discussed at this year's blowout in San Diego, starting with the industry's most notorious gentleman, who's returning to the acclaimed titled that helped make him a household name.

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Mr. Sandman, Bring Me a Respectable Reboot

After unevenly rebooting its entire superhero roster with The New 52 and siphoning Alan Moore's credibility with the more uneven Before Watchmen prequels, DC Comics needed some good news. And it got it: Neil Gaiman announced his return to The Sandman, which he majestically wrote for 75 issues from 1988 to 1996, via video (below) at the Thursday night panel for Vertigo, DC's mature imprint. Even better, Gaiman has teamed up with Batwoman's sublime artist J.H. Williams III, and the new Sandman miniseries materializes in 2013, 25 years after the first issue's debut.

Alex Ross Returns to the Interior

Comics' most recognizable artist, Alex Ross hasn't lent his mythic paints to a comic book's insides since DC's powerhouse Justice five years ago, probably because he's doing just fine thanks, painting covers for everyone on the other end of his ever-ringing phone. But the first issue of Dynamite's crossover Masks — which will collate and probably reinvigorate early 20th-century pulp heroes like The Shadow, Green Hornet, Kato, Zorro, The Spider, Miss Fury, The Black Bat and others when they are called into action to combat a fascist police state — ends that streak this November.

Happy 30th Anniversary, Los Bros Hernandez!

This year's Comic-Con marked alt-comics pioneer Love and Rockets' third decade, a stellar achievement for sibling comics stars Gilbert, Jaime and Mario Hernandez. The long-running Fantagraphics title has suitably splintered into multiple subnarratives, including this year's God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls (above) and others, but its often-humorous human heart still skillfully skips across staid genres while pumping out punks, gangsters, revolutionaries, heroes and — most importantly — everyday people living often surreal lives. It's indispensable reading for any true-school comics geek.

The Hellboy Cometh (Back)

Mike Mignola’s hilarious supernatural hero Hellboy is hard to miss, which makes fans miss him that much more when he leaves. And he's been leaving a lot: Mignola himself hasn't done much more than covers for years, and he killed of his horned hero in Hellboy: The Fury. But you can't keep a good demon down, as December's new Hellboy in Hell miniseries, written and illustrated by Mignola, proves. Welcome back, World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator!

Alan Moore + Malcolm McLaren = WTF?

Other than the continuing masterful metafictions of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Alan Moore is mostly done with comics. But comics obviously aren't done with him, as Avatar's recently announced Fashion Beast illustrates quite strangely. Launching in September as an eight-issue series, it's an exhumed collaboration with notorious Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren that was written as a screenplay about fashion, music and nuclear apocalypse while Moore was meticulously piecing together more legendary comics like Watchmen and Swamp Thing. That's about as far as Avatar's Comic-Con panel went in terms of details, but what is quite clear is that some feel even Moore's lost works are still bankable.

Crime of Passion, Rendered Dispassionately

In our new millennium inured to ultraviolence, Rick Geary is that rare comic find: a writer and artist whose depictions of historical murder are stripped bare of emotion. This reversal gives them even more impact, especially in his series for NBM/ComicsLitTreasury of Victorian Murder and Treasury of 20th Century Murder. Announced at Comic-Con, his newest is Lovers Lane, a New Jersey mystery involving the murder of an adulterous reverend and his choir lover. It's not Geary's past subjects like Abraham Lincoln and Charles Lindbergh Jr., which means it will probably be even more engrossing.

Pony Up, Comics!

You've got to hand it to television toon standout The Hub: It's turned Hasbro's toy ponies with distinctive ass tattoos into a cross-gender, cross-demographic hit. And the hits keep coming: As teased at Comic-Con, the toy pusher is teaming up with IDW Publishing to debut My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic comics this November. With all-new stories featuring writing from Gronk's Katie Cook and covers from Beasts of Burden's Jill Thompson and Womanthology's Stephanie Buscema, IDW's Ponyville comics could open minds and revenue streams alike.

Is the Force With Silvestri?

Launched two decades ago, indie upstart Image Comics created a host of hyperviolent comics inspired by the Marvel and DC duoply's hero roster. Image co-launcher Marc Silvestri's Cyber Force was one of them, and like everything else it's getting primed for reboot. But with a twist: Silvestri's Top Cow publisher plans on crowdsourcing funding from Kickstarter for the reimagined Cyber Force's first five-issue story arc, and then release it in print and digital for free. It's a risky move, but Silvestri's resume is peppered with them.

The X-Files, Deconstructed

Raise your hand if you're sick of Roswell. Those of you who did might still dig J. Michael Straczynski's The Majestic Files, announced at Legendary Comics' Comic-Con panel. That's because he's envisioning — with the help of real political, science and military sources similar to the so-called Majestic 12 — what might have happened if the United States actually recovered a crashed UFO. The truth is out there, and given that Legendary's film division has produced Christopher Nolan's Batman franchise, Majestic Files will probably make a bankable movie someday.

Comics Bring the Paint!

Lost in its blockbuster Hollywood adaptations is an appreciation of comics artistry. But even the comics industry itself hasn't fully examined the painters in its midst, filled as it is with talented illustrators. To counter that deficiency, Dynamite's forthcoming The Art of Painted Comics is a wide-ranging retrospective examining the brushes of all-stars from Alex Ross and Brian Bolland to Dave McKean and Frank Frazetta. Supervised by Ross and announced during Comic-Con, The Art of Painted Comics arrives in October as a comics history-art book hybrid that slipstreams from early 20th-century pulp to postmodern 21st-century masterpieces. It's perfect for those who look upon comics as a singular art form, rather than storyboards for popcorn movies.